Tag: Tour of Beijing

Three Weeks to Go. We're approaching mid-June, and the cycling world in Europe is building to a frenzy of anticipation: three weeks 'til the Tour! Most teams will have had five or six of their riders locked in as starters since before the season began, with only a badly-timed injury preventing big hitters like Thor Hushovd, Ryder Hesjedal and Christian Vande Velde from Garmin from starting.

Millionaires living in Monaco and the late, great Alan Van Heerden apart, the recent Tour de Langkawi saw perhaps the best ever result for an African cyclist with Algerian and MTN Qhubeka climber/sprinter Youcef Reguigui taking the penultimate stage up Fraser’s Hill, grabbing the leader’s jersey and holding on to it through the frantic last stage criterium in Kuala Lumpur.

From the chaos emerged a track centre bar and restaurant, cabins for us, work space for the mechanics - and something to race on. I can't say too much about the track - or Pete will slap me, but it obviously can't be as smooth as a permanent one. The stadium restaurant is good; we get one meal each day - last year it was two. Maybe they figure that since it's only four days we don't need fed as much?

Rejected by the US system, Marion Clignet said ‘ciao’ to Chicago Illinois and ‘bonjour’ to Brittany. The US Federation’s loss was the French Federation’s gain with the girl who the USCF thought was ‘too much of a risk to have on the team, as an epileptic,’ bringing home six world titles and two Olympic silver medals to the land of her parents’ birth – she still enjoys dual US/French citizenship – but is now firmly rooted in La Republique.

Hi, my name is Dale McCallum and I'm 17 years old. This season I will be riding for The BicycleWorks Under 25 Race Team. I have been cycling for just over two years now and I got into the sport through my dad, Scott. He rides unattached as he doesn't race because he likes to come and watch me and the team race.

Daniel Friebe's book, "Jan Ullrich, the best there never was" covers his career and life in great detail with many interviews with his coach, Peter Becker and two of the men who attempted to manage their brilliant but erratic charge, Rudy Pevenage and Walter Godefroot - who no longer exchange Christmas cards - not to mention many of his Telekom team mates, and of course there’s the other ‘stuff’; Ullrich’s addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, sex; and most damaging of all, for a man whose job involves riding a bicycle up mountains - food.